All Nippon Airways (ANA) and United Airlines are taking their budding cargo alliance beyond the US carrier’s home market and Canada to complete joint coverage of the NAFTA region. Since May their trans-Pacific joint venture includes traffic moving between Japan and Mexico, after the Japanese airline brought its daily Boeing 787 flight between Tokyo and Mexico City into the fold.

The move pushed their joint network to 377 nonstop flights to 16 destinations per week, with additional flight and truck connections within the NAFTA area and across Japan.

The inclusion of Mexico comes three months after the pair’s joint venture entered its second phase in February, taking in westbound traffic across the Pacific. ANA and United had kicked off their joint venture in July of 2016 concentrating on flows from Japan to the US and Canada.

According to a spokesperson for the Japanese carrier, NAFTA is not the end game for the venture in the Americas.

“We are planning to extend our joint venture scope market into the Americas, Latin America and also Asia, utilizing both airlines’ feeder/defeeder networks complying with any competition laws, rules and guidance,” she said.

She added that this will take time and that markets in question and the timing of the expansion steps are yet to be determined.

Sources close to United have suggested that the US carrier has been interested in access to ANA’s Asian network from the outset. In recent years United has phased out its flights between Tokyo Narita and other destinations in Asia that it had operated on fifth freedom rights. The deployment of newer aircraft with longer range meant that these markets could be served directly from the US, without stops at Narita. Hence UA Cargo was interested in additional capacity in those Asian markets.

ANA’s joint venture with Lufthansa Cargo has already spread beyond its original scope. Launched in 2014, it was extended to other European points the following year and subsequently included Lufthansa’s entire European feeder network in 2016. Last year saw the addition of perishables to the joint portfolio, which had hitherto covered only standard and express services.

For ANA this venture now gives access to 43 countries in Europe, according to the carrier’s spokesperson.

“We keep examining how our successful cooperation can be intensified further. We will announce possible future steps in due time,” a spokesman for Lufthansa Cargo said.

Together Lufthansa and ANA jointly offer over 90 flights a week, with direct services to seven points in Europe as well as Nagoya, Osaka and the two Tokyo airports on the Japanese side.

“This offers our customers numerous benefits. Owing to the larger network, we can handle more shipments from more stations. The choice of direct flights and connections is bigger. Through the greater choice of direct flights, feeder services by truck become redundant, so standard and express cargo can reach the destination hours earlier,” the Lufthansa spokesman said.

Lufthansa and United kicked off their cargo joint venture in early May this year, offering standard and express services jointly on routes between Europe and the US. This started with routes between the US, Italy, Britain, Ireland and Germany. On June 19 the partners added Belgium, the Netherlands and France as well as the German airports at Hamburg and Berlin and Chicago on the other side of the Atlantic. By the autumn more countries and gateways will be brought into the fold to cover all of Europe and the entire US, the Lufthansa spokesman signalled.

“Both airlines moreover pursue the objective to expand the joint venture by additional products,” he added.

On the customer side these developments are watched with mixed feelings.

“For airlines, alliances are an attractive way of managing capacity, for forwarders and shippers this can mean that more pricing power is shifting to airlines on routes where the alliance has a significant share,” observed Lucas Kuehner, global head of air freight at Panalpina.

“However, we do see benefits if an alliance is harmonizing processes, for example providing better standardized services across the alliance network, rather than every airline doing its own thing,” he said.

By Ian Putzger

Air Freight Correspondent | Toronto